Rick Pitino left no doubt on Wednesday, saying, “I’m finished coaching,” during an appearance on ESPN’s “Get Up.”
The former Louisville coach is making the rounds promoting his new book, “Pitino: My Story.” He had written in the book that his “coaching career is possibly finished.”
"I'm finished coaching."
-Rick Pitino on his future pic.twitter.com/Hm9QWuHKwa
— Get Up (@GetUpESPN) September 5, 2018
Pitino said he took and passed a lie detector test.
“I passed, saying I knew nothing about any money given to anybody,” Pitino said. “I knew nothing about Adidas doing anything.”
He said he was also unaware that former staffer Andre McGee was holding parties in a dormitory with strippers for players and recruits.
“Why would someone making a lot of money as a head coach allow those actions to happen?” Pitino said on “Get Up.” “And ruin his program, and ruin his legacy? It lacks common sense for anybody to believe that.”
Pitino was asked if he accepts that the buck stops with the coach when a program has problems.
“The fact that I’m not coaching, the love of my life outside of my family, the fact that I lost basketball — eat, sleep, and drink from 5:30 in the morning until late at night, I eat, drink and sleep the game — that’s my penalty,” Pitino said. “The buck did stop with me. I’m out of work.”
Pitino won two national championships as a coach — in 1996 with Kentucky and 2013 with Louisville. The latter was vacated. Pitino needs to stop talking, he’s in total denial.